The emergence and evolution of a referential code in populations of bee-like agents

2026-08-26

AI Summary

研究通过模拟蜜蜂类代理群体中指向代码的演变和过渡，探讨了在不同条件下直接指向和重力参照代码的演化机制。

Abstract

Communication requires a shared code, and any change to it must be coordinated between senders and receivers to avoid a breakdown of communication. The honeybee waggle dance illustrates this problem: species with horizontal combs point directly at a food source, while species with vertical combs cannot point directly and instead reference the dance to gravity, decoded against the position of the sun. We model the emergence and evolutionary transition between these two codes in populations of bee-like agents, with selection acting at the level of colonies. In a horizontal-comb model, we find that direct pointing evolves readily when food is moderately hard to find by random search alone, whether because sites are few and large or many and small, and fails when food is too sparse to spark dances or so abundant that it is found without signaling. Adding an exogenous benefit for vertical combs, we then find that the transition to the gravity-referenced code is driven mainly by the mutation rate and the magnitude of this benefit, with the coupling between sender and receiver mutations playing a further role at low mutation rates. Given a favorable confluence of these factors, the transition proceeds reliably and without a breakdown of communication.

Problem

• referential code
• evolution
• bee-like agents
• communication

Innovation

• emergence and evolution of a referential code
• bee-like agents
• gravity-referenced code
• mutation rate